Do you use emoticons when you chat with your friends online? What emoticon do you like to use the most?
Emoticon in Chinese is called 表情符号 [biǎo qíng fú hào], or just 表情 [biǎo qíng] for short. You can ask your Chinese friends like this:

Hover over any word to show translation

nǐ

你

你

you (informal)

zài

在

在

(located) at, (to be) in

wǎng shàng

网上

網上

online

hé

和

和

with, together with

péng you

朋友

朋友

friend

liáo tiān

聊天

聊天

to chat, to gossip

de

的

的

(used after an attribute)

shí hou

时候

時候

time

，

xǐ huan

喜欢

喜歡

to like, to be fond of

shǐ yòng

使用

使用

to use, to employ

biǎo qíng

表情

表情

(facial) expression, emoticon

ma

吗

嗎

(question particle for "yes-no" questions)

？

nǐ

你

你

you (informal)

zuì

最

最

the most

xǐ huan

喜欢

喜歡

to like, to be fond of

shǐ yòng

使用

使用

to use, to employ

de

的

的

(used after an attribute)

biǎo qíng

表情

表情

(facial) expression, emoticon

shì

是

是

is, are

shén me

什么

什麼

what

ne

呢

呢

particle indicating that a previously asked question is to be applied to the preceding word ("What about ...?", "And ...?")

？

Do you like to use emoticons when you chat with your friends online? What emoticon do you like to use the most?

Character set

Pinyin

Recently, China's biggest social network website Tencent QQ published 2015 year's emoticon usage statistics. Let's take a look at what emoticons Chinese netizens like to use.

No.1 呲牙/龇牙 [zī yá] - Grinning Face
The grinning face emoticon symbolizes “courteous” or “cute”, and is commonly used by netizens around the country for greeting each other.

No.2 愤怒 [fèn nù] - Angry Face
The angry face is popular among young users, and is reportedly used the most frequently on September 1st. This is because that is the day when Chinese school starts after summer vacation. Everyone wants to keep having summer vacation and not go to back school.

No.3 亲亲 [qīn qīn] - Kissing Face
As you might guess, the kissing face is the favorite emoticon for couples.

No.4 偷笑 [tōu xiào] - Chuckle Face

No.5 敲打 [qiāo dǎ] - Punching Face

No.6 可怜 [kě lián] - Pitiful Face

No.7 抠鼻 [kōu bí] - Nose Picking
The nose picking emoticon symbolizes “bored”, “indifferent”, or “disagreeing”. Some netizens claim that this usage data is inaccurate and that the nose picking emoticon is actually the one most used by Chinese netizens. Of course, many netizens also think the nose picking emoticon is disgusting and do not like to use it.

No.8 发呆 [fā dāi] - Absent-Minded Face

No.9 再见 [zài jiàn] - Goodbye Face

No.10 吓 [xià] - Scary Face

According to the gender difference data, boys are more likely to use the 骚 [sāo]（acting cool）emoticon, while girls like to use 萌 [méng]（cute, Moe）.

There is also a set of very popular chat stamps which use the two characters Lilei and Hanmeimei “李雷和韩梅梅 [lǐ léi hé hán méi méi]. Lilei and Hanmeimei are characters from the junior high school English textbook in China, so the Chinese are very familiar with them.

These stamps contain funny phrases with deliberately mistaken translations and Chinglish. For example, 不要熬夜 [bú yào áo yè] （Do not stay up late）is translated into “Do not Oh Yeah” because 熬夜 in Chinese sounds similar to the English “Oh Yeah”.

Did you enjoy these Chinese emoticons?

This is the accompanying blog post for our upper intermediate lesson "Emoticons in China".You can read the entire lesson for free using Du Chinese, available for iPhone and Android.Click here for more information.